[Dev log November] Character beautify vs custom shader

The goal of the team was to have cell shaded type of outline on to our main characters or objects that are of significance. This will not only enhance the look of the game but give players a point of focus.

To achieve this goal, we were initially using post processing called “Beautify”. This was a one stop shop add on for a High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP for short). What we have noticed was that, we were compromising frames per second by using the outline feature of Beautify to achieve the cell shaded look.

In a fast paced brawl style game, higher and smoother frames per second are very important. Optimization is the key to having the perfect brawl game. Skipping frames while mid attack can prove fatal to the competitive nature of NFT Brawlers.

Furthermore, Beautify is not as dynamic as we have initially thought. While the camera is zooming out, the outlines remained the same size. HDRP solutions are made to work with high end devices only. NFT Brawlers is a game that is being designed for every platform that exists including mobile. We can solve this by taking the HDRP post processing package apart, but at what cost?

What did we do to solve this?

Custom Shader method — our developers are moving to custom shader to achieve the cell shaded look. This not only optimizes the game but also works with any camera movements and animations, effectively eliminating any one stop shop issues that may come with Beautify or any other HDRP methods.

This was our first dev log for the game changes, if you would like to learn more about NFT Brawlers, please visit https://NFTBrawlers.net/